Man dies after a game of "Let's set fire to the rug and see who stays in the house longer"

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An intoxicated Davis Park man died after he lit a rug on fire and challenged his roommate to see who could stay in the house on Fire Island longer Saturday night, Suffolk County police said.

Police said Thomas Woods, 59, ignited the rug in his house at 9 Driftwood Walk sometime before 8 p.m. As the fire spread, Woods fired one or two rounds from a pre-World War I Mauser pistol, said Det. Sgt. Ed Fandrey of the Suffolk County homicide squad. Police do not know why he fired the gun.

When the fire began spreading dangerously, Woods' roommate, Rod Bennett, ran to a neighbor's house to call 911 a few minutes after 8 p.m.

Volunteers from the Davis Park Fire Department responded, along with neighbors who tried to extinguish the blaze with garden hoses and anything else they could find. But it was too late.

"All of a sudden, flames shot up," said one neighbor, Nancy Buglino. "The whole sky was lit up."

A total of 75 firefighters from neighboring Fire Island departments as well as Blue Point and Patchogue eventually responded, some traveling across the Great South Bay by ferry. The fire was brought under control in 40 minutes.

Naw . . . at age 59, he would be too old for a Darwin award, which requires removing oneself from the gene pool while reproduction is still possible. Either he's already reproduced or removed himself from the gene pool long before the act in question. Either way, his

ODESSA, Texas -- A student who drank a chemical from his high school lab on a dare was recovering in a hospital, but not before a scare.

The student drank the unidentified chemical on a two-dollar bet at the school, said Nancy Smith, a UMC supervisor.

"We need to find out what it was from the toxicologist," Assistant Principal Ray Lascano said. "All of those materials belonged to one of the chemistry labs."

The student was found last Wednesday in a school hallway, bleeding from the nose and mouth.

The unidentified student, a junior at Odessa High School, was upgraded Monday from critical to satisfactory condition at University Medical Center in Lubbock.

Lascano, who talked with the youth's mother Monday afternoon, said swelling in his throat had receded enough for him to talk. The student was moved from the Lubbock hospital's intensive-care unit to the pediatric unit, he said.

Lascano said Ector County Independent School District officials were still investigating.

A BUNGLING thief tried to siphon diesel from a camper van but got a mouthful of raw sewage.

The would-be raider missed the fuel tank in the dark and put a tube into the van's septic tank by mistake.

And after sucking up the foul-smelling waste, he threw up on the spot and fled.

Pensioner John O'Hare found a puddle of vomit and an abandoned petrol container when he stepped out of the van in the morning.

And last night he smiled: 'I hope the thief has learned from his experience and given up his evil ways.'

John, 73, and wife May, 69 of Arden, Glasgow had spent a week touring Scotland before stopping off for the final night of their holiday in Helensburgh, Dunbartonshire.

John said: 'We made sure everything was safe and secure and settled down for the night. The following morning we were disgusted to find that under the cover of darkness a thief had attempted to siphon off diesel from the fuel tank.

'But fortunately for us, he was left with a nasty taste in his mouth.'

John found a plastic siphon tube and an empty fuel container next to their camper.

The contents of the septic tank had been drained and lay on the ground next to a pool of the thief's vomit. Also abandoned at the scene was a pile of pound coins which John believes may have been stolen from a vending machine earlier in the night.

John and May donated the abandoned pound coins to Oxfam.

John said: 'We hope this thief will give up robbing visitors and tourists seeking a peaceful and pleasant holiday after what happened to him.'